I doubted myself and reread the scene about an hour ago.
What I understood this time through is that Chakotay "gets off" on doing what she tells him to do.
The indefatigable definition of a bondage gimp.
You see, I knew that he was putting limits on their relationship, that Chakotay was saying pooh pooh to rumpypumpy, and I thought that because he was saying that he didn't see sex as a winnable endgame any more, that it was time to settle for a limited relationship "like" friendship, but really, as a gimp, sex was never his goal, becuase as a gimp he's brought to orgasm every time she tells him what to do and how to do it. Sex was a bridge too far that would have ruined the relationship that he wanted from Kathryn.
I was too naive to understand this last time I saw the show, assuming that you can't have a healthy romantic relationship without a physical release, but it turned out that Chajotay's physical release isn't from his groin or his lips, but from treating his selfworth like a punching bag, and what I thought was back-pedalling had actually been rape until this point.
Kathryn did not know that she was constantly tickling his errogenous zone until this exact second when he explained what he needed from her. that she couldn't be in charge with out the indian falling deeper in love with her.
It's like how in Ally McBeal most women didn't know to hide their waddles from Richard Fish.
What Kathryn did with this information from this point was up to her, but the only way to back away from a Gimp is to force equality on him and make sure that you don't ever give any orders, and some times even arrange the situation so the gimp is in charge.